Politico: Should We Be Worried That Washington’s Pandas Are Being Sent Back to China?

[China]

 Should We Be Worried That Washington’s Pandas Are Being Sent Back to China?

 

hen the last of the National Zoo’s giant pandas is shipped back to China this fall, Washington will say goodbye to one of its most popular tourist attractions. It’ll also mark the departure of a living, breathing, bamboo-chomping international-relations metaphor — a history that begins with a cuddly gift at a triumphal inflection point in the last Cold War, and may now be ending with an empty panda house at the anxious dawn of the new one.

 

Officially, the bears are leaving because the lease is up. But the Smithsonian is mum about prospects for replacements, as well as about why negotiations for a new lease fizzled. And their decision to hold the weeklong “Panda Palooza” farewell festival that concluded last Sunday makes it look like they don’t expect a quick return of an animal that had come to represent the zoo itself.

 

In the beginning, it was all about optimism and goodwill. The black-and-white giants arrived in the heady days that followed President Richard Nixon’s dramatic 1972 opening to China. During the visit, Pat Nixon had been sitting next to Zhou Enlai at a banquet and remarked that the pandas on the Chinese premier’s cigarette tin were awfully cute. “I’ll give you some,” Zhou replied.

 

The first lady may not have known it, but the species was freighted with significance for the Communist government. Because pandas hadn’t been part of the iconography of the old imperial court, the uniquely Chinese animal became an acceptable way of expressing national pride under the People’s Republic. By the time of the cultural revolution, they were ubiquitous in consumer brands and officially sanctioned art, according to Elena Songster, a historian who has written a book-length political history of the species. “Panda diplomacy” was also a useful PR tool.

 

Within two months of that dinner with the Nixons, Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling had landed at Andrews Air Force Base en route to the zoo, history’s most adorable diplomatic gesture. More than 20,000 people came to see the 18-month-olds on their first weekend. The president himself came to the welcome party, embracing the pandas as an emblem of his historic statecraft — and a bona fide popular sensation where lines to see the exhibit could be an hour deep.

 

In a panda-smitten American capital, there was no doubt that the animals would be replaced. But it wasn’t 1972 anymore. China was no longer an impoverished giant stumbling out of isolation — and Sino-American relations were no longer all about crafty triangulation against a mutual foe. There are fewer than 2,000 pandas left. Like good stewards of a rising economic behemoth, Chinese officials knew just what to do when you have a monopoly on a scarce resource: Demand top dollar and drive tough terms.

 
So when Mei Xiang and Tian Tian arrived in 2000, the new pandas were no gift. They were a pricey financial transaction. The zoo would be renting the pandas from the China Wildlife Conservation Association for 10 years at a price of $10 million. Under the terms of the arrangement, which called for Smithsonian and Chinese scientists to work jointly on research and breeding of the endangered species, any cub the pair produced would remain Chinese property.

 

The terms were fairly standard. Panda diplomacy had stopped being about a revolutionary government gifting the rare cuties to its friends. It was now about an emerging WTO member striking lucrative rental arrangements all over the world — deals that wouldn’t have to be renewed should the situation change. Other American zoos got in on the action, too, meaning the pandas in Washington were no longer quite such a unique attraction. Even cuddly zoo animals, it seemed, reflected a ballooning trade deficit.

 

Even as relations between the governments grew frostier, new versions of the 2000 deal between the zoo and the Chinese wildlife organization were signed in 2010 and again in 2015. The most recent pact was extended at the end of the Covid-ridden 2020, during which the zoo was closed for a chunk of time. But the extension was for only three years.

 

By that point, negotiations were taking place against the backdrop of an American political scene in which anti-China sentiments were running hot — and a Chinese context where resentment of alleged U.S. lecturing made leaders ever less interested in touchy-feely gestures.

 

Last year, in the House of Representatives, that sentiment finally attached itself to the pandas. The Promoting Animal Naturalization and Democracy Act (PANDA — get it?), introduced by South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace, condemned panda leases, directing the U.S. to establish a rival panda-breeding program with allies. It also said that pandas born in the U.S. should stay here.

 

“For too long, the Chinese Communist Party has attempted to soften its image with that of the soft cuddly panda by loaning giant pandas to foreign countries at a fee of $500,000 per panda. All countries must agree to return the pandas to China, property of the Communist Chinese government. Let’s get serious with our diplomacy, and hit China where it hurts,” Mace said in a floor speech that mentioned the Wuhan Covid outbreak and the treatment of the Uyghur minority.

 

The measure went nowhere, but it was a pretty good example of our era’s background music. Did it blow up chances for a new lease? Unclear. Panda loans to local zoos also ended in Memphis and San Diego. A State Department spokesperson reiterated to me that the deal between the National Zoo and the China Wildlife Conservation Association wasn’t a government-to-government contract. But as a trust created and funded by the federal government, the Smithsonian is led by folks who tend to worry about getting hauled before Congress and accused of appeasing an enemy.

 

This summer, it became clear that no one on either side was doing any appeasing: The zoo announced that the contract would expire at year’s end. 

 

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[Cooked Crack]

Meh. This is like the lamest diplomatic retaliation. Don't really care one way or the other.

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

Why do Pandas always have names like Mei Xiang and Tian Tian? In the Chinese zoos, do they have Grizzlies named Derek and Steve?

[Corcaigh]

5 minutes ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

Why do Pandas always have names like Mei Xiang and Tian Tian? In the Chinese zoos, do they have Grizzlies named Derek and Steve?

Capitalist Suppressor and Imperialist Invader